Free will existed in good omens despite ineffability
This post/essay was initially meant to be a response to another post that stated that predestination/ineffability is not compatible with free will so that is why the restart of the universe was necessary. Unfortunately it's now too long to be typed as a comment but anyways... These arguments are based mostly on theological and philosophical explanation which I believe to be fitting but I am not majoring neither an expert in humanities these are just my interests so if you feel like there is anything incorrect feel free to tell me. I’m going to address a few of my interpretation of good omens, but this is a reminder that they’re just my interpretations and that I’ve watched the show just a couple of times as I’ve joined the fandom in the beginning of this year, so I’m happy to hear the opinion of more veteran fans! Also, English is not my first language, so I am sorry if there are any typos/mistakes.
I believe that humanity in good omens( because the way I feel about It in real life is VERY different) truly has free will as free will isn't in contrast with predestination and ineffability, as stated in the bible and also reminded in S1 free will is created with the first sin of humanity, the temptation done by Crowley. In Christianity humans have free will and while it is a very complicated topic and also discussed in different doctrines within Christianity, it is generally accepted that just like the fate in the ancient Greek world humans can act with a certain margin of liberty in our lives , and even if we can’t control the world’s fate, because God will decide when the world will come to an end and the judgement begin but we do have freedom over choosing evil and good ( in fact nobody expected humans to come up with something like the Spanish Inquisition).
The doctrine of predestination was first discussed together with free will. In the last half of fourth century, the doctrine of predestination was accepted as a condition of God’s divine omniscience of events. The next grand revision to this doctrine was the addition of foreknowledge and permission, allowing thus compatibility of free will and predestination. This position was clarified by the writings of Augustine of Hippo in 396. Augustine taught that while God gave free will to man, God did not intend for free will to be used equally for good or evil. Free will is granted but tends toward the ability to conduct good deeds. Under this principle, predestination is compatible with free will because God knows who chooses to gravitate toward evil; a person can have free will without nullifying predestination.
Predestination has generally contradictory meanings and even within theologists disagree on certain opinions, as theology has contractions and paradoxes, for instance this perspective was at odds with those of the Calvinists, who taught that no action of man could modify the predestination foreseen by God. According to this theory predestination is the belief that God has chosen those that he intends to save and decides their destiny to that end. Opposing this theory there is another approach “Arminianism” : whether you are elected by God depends on your faith in them, therefore, every human being has a choice regarding their eternal destiny.
Usually we tend to assume that predestination means that God controls your destiny but as we’ve just discussed is more about the fact that God knows who will chose good or evil and how their choices will lead to the predestined ending, but if we assume this vision we also assume an acting role of God because a God that knows everything but does nothing is bound to receive at one point defective products, just like devils. Some scholars believe that predestination and fate hold the same meaning and thus the following of God's plan, determined by ineffability and fate, the chance occurrence that may or may not achieve God's chosen path of events, can be held as compatible.
So free will can coexist under religion and predestination since in general predestination is the fact that God know what will happen at the end times of each human being, but they generally can blur the edges, modify their story, this is why sometime predestination is considered a synonym of fate. I would like to make an assumption and consider fate, predestination and the ineffable plan as synonymises because I like to think that Greek’s mythology had an impact on good omens (I’m talking about the tv show not the book which I unfortunately haven’t had the chance to read yet).
Since I have watched good omens apart from being reminded of my religious education (I was raised as a catholic), I was also reminded of Greek’s classics because of the way that angels are portrayed is more alike Greeks’ gods rather than how way the bible depicts ethereal beings. The main argument for my interpretation comes not from Aziraphale, yes he’s not a typical angel but his circumstances are different (apart from the fact that he has doubts in God and heaven), but from Gabriel instead: Gabriel is self-absorbed and egocentric, we can see this from him admiring his statue in the cemetery or every time he reinforces that he’s the supreme archangel, he’s the one in charge. Heaven and his corporate-like structure are to me a critique to our society where leaders decide the fate of humanity without considering the wellness of human beings, but it also represents that this society of eternal beings is more comparable to Greek’s Olympus than Christian heaven. Heaven has a hierarchical order but as depicted in Dante’s Divine Comedy, angels/saints can equally benefit from the vision of God, there isn’t any lesser being (their only distinction is the light that they emit) they can all admire the holiness of the holy trinity from the same place in the Empyrean. The existence of these elements has led me to translate ineffability a Fate.
Fate in the Greek world is a widely explored concept in both philosophical and mythological fields but today I will focus more o the mythical aspect (even though I am currently doing a deep dive on determinism/indeterminism and on why the good omens universe does not entail free will). Fate in the Greek world is something that can coexist with free will, Oedipus was destined to kill his father and marry his mother but ultimately this fate was achieved through his actions, because he decided to act. In the mythic tales, we find proof of mortal triumph over predetermined destinies. In the Oedipus king, Oedipus fought so hard against the oracle’s predictions and unknowingly this lead him to fulfil the prophecy he sought to escape, this may sound contradictory but it’s an evidence of free will. While Oedipus could not escape his tragic fate, his actions and choices shaped the course of his life, revealing the limitations of a predetermined existence. Hence a prophecy does not entail that free won’t exist. On the contrary, the way we decide to challenge, act, answer to that foreknowledge we exercise our capacity to shape our destiny.
If decide to embrace the humanistic spirit that lies at the core of ancient Greek thought, we must dare to challenge the chains of fate.
Another similary I found with Greek ancient world is God: I would say that the God in season 1 and 2 retaining foreknowledge is not a God that acts, we see that angels have no idea about what the ineffable plan is about and even the world ending doesn’t seem to be something that God described in detail. This kind of God can be seen as either Fate itself or as God in the Einstein vision / Epicureanism doctrine (a God that has abandoned humanity and watch over it without intervening).
In season one we see that God plays poker alone, but that’s boring and lonely right? I mean God has plans for the universe plans that nobody knows because they're ineffable. But what if God doesn't have any plans and ineffability is the results of giving free will to humans ? This would mean that the world was already random before and not predetermined. Even if God has plans for the universe I would say that is rather predictable if you know all the variables of the world but then something happens that maybe they predicted, but it is also unexpected because it is outside of the norm: an angel and a devil befriend despite their differences. God then decides to observe said angel and devil but still without intervention, it’s a poker game where God is the observer but the true game is played with hell and heaven against humanity and Aziraphale and Crowley as the watchers of the earth; in a way at first Crowley and Aziraphale are in the same position of the observant God until they decide to enter the poker game and side with humanity. The poker battle should have concluded with the loss of heaven and hell instead God decided to enter the game against the same angel and devil that made God’s poker game less boring, and who won in the end? God. The angel and the devil that first challenged Fate itself (God) alongside humanity decided to abandon their ideal, their love for that flawed Earth, they decided to stop choosing, they let the destiny happen.
Kierkegaard believed that the man is free, thus his freedom leads to free will and possibilities of choosing one’s destiny, but this leads all to despair, which is not abstract freedom, free will, but finite freedom because every possibility nullifies the precedent one. Free will for Kierkegaard means making choices based on core values, inwardness, and for destiny that humanity has to choose for themself, free wills mean making decisions related to one's faith in God and his own existential stance. Thus, a man is created and has a burden to bear, he has CHOICES to make. As Sartre said free will is a necessary condition for existence, we live thus we must make choices. Hence, we can and have to choose despite everything, that is what being human incarnate means. Humans were always stubborn and refused to have a higher power control them, this is what I like about our species is that we can unity against higher authorities usurping us. The removal of free will from the previous universe also imply that everything terribly cruel and incredibly good that humans did was predetermined by God, by saying this we remove responsibility and praise two fundamental items for our society right now. I believe that we as humans have long let go of our freedom and have been trading it for our pleasures and comfort, we don’t want to feel responsible anymore for our actions yet we should start acting like Adam instead of leaving the world salvation to two eternal beings who while they loved us shouldn’t have saved Earth on our behalf.
